


the way i see you (transcends the hurt of affection)

by petitlionhomme



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Acceptance, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Canon-Typical Violence, Healing, Kisses, Learning to move on, M/M, Mentions of Ash’s past, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Self-Acceptance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 23:46:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19486441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petitlionhomme/pseuds/petitlionhomme
Summary: Ash has never quite moved on from his past, and he has never learned to forgive himself but Blanca will do away with any misgivings he has about himself.





	the way i see you (transcends the hurt of affection)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [So Kiss Me](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/495844) by SoSkepticalFox. 



> Here’s my posting for the Banana Fish Reverse Bang! It’s been a wonder to be part of! My story is based on the art provided by SoSkepticalFox on Twitter which is (hopefully) linked.

Blanca did not understand love, not at first. when he’d met and married his wife, however, he began to understand.   
  
He knew that it was pillow talk, roses, and wedding cake. It was liquor and wine kisses, a steady build up of affection and warmth. It was like a gentle rising of the sun, soft sweetness.   
  
That was what loving Natasha had been, but loving Ash was different; it was like thunderstorms and tidal waves, harsh winter storms and desert heat.    
  
From the sunshine blond of his hair to the sharpness of his smile, Ash was a new type of love that Blanca looked at in the pale moonlight and the glowing sunshine and wondered  _ how can this boy be real? _

Sometimes it was overwhelming, but it overwhelmed him in a way that made his chest ache for gentle hands and a slurred Manhattan accent. 

Both of which Ash had, luckily.

“You haven’t been reading that.”

Looking up from the book ( _ The Picture of Dorian Gray,  _ which had been perched open in Blanca’s lap for the past hour) he realized that as he had sat lost in thought, he had been staring at the line  _ “all Art is quite useless,”  _ having not even made it to the first chapter of the book before he’d been overtaken by the thoughts of Ash, the anomaly of his life.

Ash sat on the corner of the couch, comfortable in a pair of jeans that were low on his waist, no shirt, with water dripping down his chest from the strands of hair sticking to his neck. His chest rose and fell gently with his breathing, and Ash never breathed loud enough to hear. 

It was enough to scare Blanca at night when they slept, but the subtle rise and fall always lulled his fears.

“You’re staring, old man.” Ash snorted, reaching over to take the book with nimble fingers, reading over a few lines before he dog-earred the page and closed it, sliding it onto the coffee table.

Crawling from the arm of the couch, he planted himself on Blanca’s lap and smirked down at him, running a hand through the older man’s hair. 

Staring up at Ash, he looked younger from this angle, and while he  _ was _ younger than Blanca, he still looked much older when you looked into his eyes. 

Everything about Ash was a contradiction, he looked soft when he was rough around the edges, like a burnt piece of paper; his eyes spoke of never-ending pain even as his mouth was spitting poetry and vulgar jokes.

How was this razor-eyed boy so content in his lap? Blanca could feel the press of the gun that was tucked into Ash’s jeans; if he glanced down, he’d no doubt see the bulge from it.

How was this contradiction of meanings and feelings  _ real _ ?

“I suppose that I am.” Blanca said with a slight roughness to the usual smoothness of his lightly accented voice. The blond raised an eyebrow and leaned in closer, the smell of vanilla filling Blanca’s nose, he could taste it lightly on his tongue. 

Verdant eyes penetrated obsidian, staring deep and soulful, like he was trying to see more than just whatever was distracting his lover. 

“You suppose?” He breathed, nose brushing Blanca’s, leaving a drop of water there when he pulled back from him, the press of his lips soon following, trailing them up until he’d laid his lips on Blanca’s brow. Tilting his head back, Ash smiled a little when he felt the press of Blanca’s lips on his neck, against his pulse. 

In the light of the parted curtains and the slits in the blinds, Blanca felt complete. 

—————————

Trailing hands, Ash allowed kisses to be pressed to different scars on his body. On bullet wounds and stab marks, over the healing tattoo in the shape of a comma, in the little dip of where he’d gotten surgery, Ash felt loved. Thorough, and careful, as all things that Blanca did tended to be. 

Blanca pressed a peck to Ash’s sternum, dark eyes gazing up through his eyelashes. There was no lust in his black eyes, only a need for something that Ash was more than willing to give as he draped his arms over Blanca’s shoulders, pressing in close, fingers buried in brown hair and soothingly rubbed the older man’s scalp.

To be held and to be cared for, it went both ways. As all relationships should, everything they did was part compromise, part need. 

Ash pressed a kiss to Blanca’s forehead, the emotions he felt were blue-black, bruising in their deep and meaningful way of controlling the actions of both of them. 

The way Ash didn’t need to coax Blanca to lay back in bed with him, the way all he had to do was lay back on the bed and Blanca was curling around him, his head on Ash’s stomach, arms around his waist.

A softness, under the pale moonlight that bled into the bedroom of their home, the one that took three years to build. 

Emotions were hard and the past was never forgotten, but if it meant that Ash never had to go without seeing Blanca laugh, he didn’t care.

Love was a sacrifice, wasn’t it? 

If Ash had to bleed himself dry for Blanca, he’d cut himself open and do so. 

Call him idiotic, spit on his grave and defile his headstone, but if love meant sacrifice and giving, he would give too much and then give more. 

His heart took control of his head, it led him in a risky ballroom dance where the once beautiful floor was full of holes that dropped onto spikes, full of the corpses and skeletons of those who’d already fallen, where the anguished cries still filled the air as he danced with a ghost. 

Staring down at the sleeping body that was curled around his middle, Ash knew that he would never trip and fall into those caverns, he knew that instead he would allow the music to crescendo as he narrowly avoided each and every hole, until the ghost in his arms had flesh, a heartbeat and dark eyes. 

—————————

“Blanca… Sergei.” 

Dark eyes widened and Blanca turned his head, staring at the blond before him. Blood soaked his shirt but he knew that none of it was his own.

He was cracking, he could see it. 

The razors in his eyes were dulled, the sun of his hair had hidden behind clouds and the sharpness of his mouth was gone.

“Alex is dead.” 

Though the words were whispered, it felt like they’d been screamed. Blanca had no overly emotional connection to Alex, but he knew that he’d taken care of Ash. 

While Blanca had been busy teaching Ash how to kill, Alex had been teaching him how to make one meal last two weeks. 

1990 suddenly felt like 1985, and Ash was a seventeen year old again, he was sleeping in abandoned factories on threadbare couches and living in a rat and roach infested apartment in the slums. 

He was fighting a summer war, with a boy who didn’t belong to his world, he wasn’t in the fully furnished living room of their home, he was crying in the bathroom and cleaning blood from his hands.

He’d lost Alex, one of his closest friends and suddenly, he didn’t know who he was.

Suddenly he was 12 and meeting Alex for the first time.

————————

It was hard to build Ash up after that, and though he kept a strong face for his gang, even when he secretly paid for Alex to be sent back to his hometown in Maine and paid for the whole damn funeral from behind the scenes, he wasn’t okay. 

If anyone knew, it was Blanca, he knew that those eyes would be dull for a long time. He’d already lost Shorter, he’d heard the terrible news that Eiji had nearly died last year, Blanca couldn’t begin to imagine how it must have felt. 

Ash felt like the world was collapsing around him, and even when he was reminded that he could keep going, that he was okay, he knew that deep down, he’d never truly move on. Moving on wasn’t something Ash was so easily capable of, even when it seemed like it.

These emotions were red, like blood.

—————————

“We’re taking a trip, Ash, pack up.”

If there was one thing Blanca wasn’t, it was sporadic. So, the news that they were going on a trip was a shock for Ash. 

He looked up from the book in his hands, the radio playing softly in the back. He was slow, the month since Alex’s funeral having past, but even then, the wounds still felt fresh. 

“Where?” He asked, even though he was already getting up and following Blanca to their bedroom, eyebrows drawn up. The man gave him no response and that was okay, but it still confused him. 

“You won’t agree if I say where.” That was all he got when Blanca pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

“What if I said that I don’t want to go?”

“Then we’ll stay home.”

Ash started packing some of his clothes.

————————

The endless wheatfields of Cape Cod reminded Ash of two separate summers, one when he was eight years old and reminded terribly of the results of the time he’d spent under  _ that _ man, before he killed him. 

The other, it was lighter, it was refreshing. 

A summer spent eating ice cream and drinking oversized Cokes, eating hot dogs and playing in the river. He remembered dark eyes, a different shape than Blanca’s, and full of some otherworldly innocence that Ash had to protect.

Two summers, because summer was such a special season, it was when things grew and bloomed and died and wilted.

Ash had been unlucky, he’d done both. He’d grew and bloomed, he’d died and wilted. 

Wheat fields full of memories, he was in a town frozen in time, where Frank Sinatra and Patti Page played on the jukebox in the diners, where jazz was a second language and summer never did truly end.

———————

“Is your father still alive?” Blanca asked as he pulled up to the diner than his father owned and Ash bristled. He could still hear Blanca’s words from earlier, after they’d been on the road for hours.

_ “We’re going to Cape Cod. You need to heal and this is the best place to do it.” _

He didn’t cry or scream, just did his best to ignore Blanca for a majority of the ride.

“Yeah. The old geezer just won’t kick the basket.” He mumbled, speaking for the first time since they’d been on the road. Ash swallowed, ignoring how painfully dry his throat was. 

Blanca hummed as Ash directed him to the house where he’d spent his childhood and didn’t move when the key was pulled from the ignition.

“Come on, Ash.. Or do you need a moment?” Ash nodded and Blanca nodded in turn. He got out and closed the door but didn’t leave, just leaned against it with his back to the window to give Ash some privacy. 

He needed a moment to breathe, the thoughts filling his head were too much but there was another thought, one that made him almost laugh. 

_ Blanca will protect me _ , he was thinking,  _ because he loves me and he’d never let me get hurt, not anymore. _

Opening the car door, he climbed out and the grass and gravel beneath his shoes was so familiar, even after all these years, that it made his head swim. Walking around the front of the expensive truck, Ash smiled at Blanca tightly. 

“Let’s get this over with.”

—————————

Jim was quiet as he watched Blanca and Ash. They weren’t paying him any mind, talking over a drink and a shared bowl of potatoes and shrimp. 

Blanca, a burly man by all means, was so sweet towards Ash. He was unapologetic about his love, it was in his eyes, in his smile and the way he wrinkled his nose and laughed at the things that Ash said. 

Ash pushed a forkful of potatoes to the man’s mouth and he dutifully ate it, Ash looking rather proud of himself for having fed the man. 

Jim looked down at his own bowl, and realized in that moment, he’d ruined something.

Ash was right there, and even despite what happened all those years ago, a dead look had dulled his eyes and he just mumbled something or another about not staying too long.

Had he truly messed up so badly as a father? 

Yes. He had. He’d ruined Ash, from such a young age. He’d never loved Ash, not Griffin either. 

He’d instead taken happiness and a childhood from them, for what? 

Standing and glancing over his shoulder, he caught eyes with Blanca, who very briefly, glanced at Ash and Jim nodded. The man said something too quiet for him to hear before standing up and walking away. 

Ash grew tense, in that moment, but said nothing when Jim sat across from him.

“Aslan.”

“Jim.”

Even at the age of twenty, he was as stubborn as he’d been as a child. The blond sipped his drink and gave Jim a cold look. 

“What do you want?”

Jim swallowed his pride and his hesitation, and looked Ash in his eyes. It was like looking at his mother, except her eyes had been warmer. 

They’d been so alive, and Ash’s own eyes were alive too, but in Jim’s presence they had become much more guarded. 

“I want to apologize-“ Ash went to cut him off and Jim held up a hand, a tired look crossing over his face. “Let me speak.. Please.”

“Why should I?,” Ash asked, slamming the cup down. “You know how much you fucked me up? I was raped, Jim! At the age of ten! I was some man’s personal sex doll and you expect me to listen you ‘apologize’ to me? No. No, I won’t. You ruined my childhood, you ruined Griffin’s childhood! He’s in an  _ unmarked grave _ because of you.”

He wasn’t crying, but the tears were gleaming in a thin film over his eyes. 

“Aslan-“

“No.. no. You took so much from me. I don’t want to listen to this and I have the right to not listen to this bullshit.” He stood up, the chair screeching behind him. “Don’t speak to me. My boyfriend and I are here for whatever reason and that reason doesn’t include you.” 

He left, slamming the door so hard the frame of the building shook and Jim watched.

He had been undeserving of even Ash’s anger. 

———————

Blanca held Ash in his arms, and he didn’t cry. Just rested on Blanca’s chest and calmed himself down, Blanca’s fingers carding gently through his hair. He looked up and sighed, grabbing the older man’s free hand and kissing the palm of it. 

“Why are we here?”

“For you to heal.”

Ash sat up, his messy hair falling into his face. His confusion was obvious, and Blanca sighed, grabbing one of Ash’s hands.

“Haven’t you ever cried for yourself?” He asked and Ash shook his head, like the idea of crying for himself was incredulous. 

Ash has cried many times before, but very rarely for himself. He didn’t know how to cry for himself, he didn’t know how to be sad because of what happened to him. 

He only knew how to cry for everyone else, he cried when he thinks about how Cape Cod is bloody in his eyes, he cries because Eiji was so innocent and he watched the world crumble, he cried for Sing-Soo Ling who was too young to be leading a gang, he cried for Shorter, his best friend who died because he got stuck in  _ Ash’s _ mess.

Was crying for himself even worth it?

To cry for himself meant that on some deeper level, he had to start to forgive himself and could he? Could Ash forgive himself, for all the lives he’d ruined?

Sighing loudly, Ash shook his head and Blanca raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s go to sleep. It’s been a long day.”

————————

“Is the water clean-?” Ash laughed at Blanca as he tossed his own shirt off and threw it at the older man. “I don’t think this is very sanitary, Ash.”

The blond rolled his eyes as he walked towards the bank of the river where the water lapped at his toes and he smiled, looking over his shoulder.

“I swam in this river all the time, don’t worry. The most you need to worry about this is the crayfish.” He was starting to walk further into the water and Blanca sighed, toeing off his shoes and pulled his shirt off, following his boyfriend much to his enjoyment. 

“The water is very pretty, yeah?” Ash wasn’t looking at the water though, he was staring at Blanca. The Russian blushed and Ash smiled a little before walking deeper, till the water was a bit above his waist and he smiled over his shoulder.

“Blanca, let’s just have fun today, alright?”

They played in the water like little kids, Ash squealing with laughter and Blanca enjoying seeing that smile on his face again. 

When they were done, they dried off and bought ice cream, Ash got very quiet and his eyebrows were furrowed as he walked beside Blanca on the boardwalk.

“Blanca..? Do you think this will really help?” He asked, glancing at him out of the side of his eye and Blanca nodded. “I do, Ash, I think that you can get better and sometimes going to the place that it all started helps.”

“So like- Exposure therapy?” Blanca nodded and Ash hummed, turning to Blanca and pressing the butter pecan ice cream come to his mouth. “Here, taste it.” Blanca humored Ash by tasting the ice cream and he wrinkled his nose, in obvious distaste.

“It’s.. okay.”

Ash laughed at him and shook his head, amused by the other’s reaction. 

“You don’t like it?”

“No.”

The blond smiled up at Blanca, and hummed under his breath. “How long will we stay here?”

“Two weeks.”

Ash nodded to himself and his eyes dulled again. 

————————

_ “Isn’t that Jim’s boy?” _

_ “He’s all grown up now.” _

_ “Bet he’s still a whore?” _

_ “You seen that rich foreigner with ‘im? O’course he is!” _

Ash was used to the whispers, even after years. Apparently people in this town still remembered him after all those years, and it made him sick. 

_ None of them helped me,  _ he thought,  _ when I was begging for more help than I even knew. _

Blanca looked a mix of disgusted and uncomfortable with the words but Ash didn’t say anything, just kept leading them through the farmer’s market. He pointed to the corn and then looked at Blanca.

“You can tell which corn to buy by feeling it, like this,” Ash instructed as he grabbed an ear of corn, feeling over the kernels through the husk. “Make sure there aren’t any holes or nothin’.” That was a new development too, Ash had gotten a bit of his old accent back and he didn’t seem to realize but Blanca didn’t mind. 

“And feel the tassels too. They need to be brown like this, and a little sticky, ‘else they’re old.” He instructed and Blanca nodded with a small smile on his face. The woman selling looked new to the town, and seemingly very interested in their dynamic.

“You’re new around here?” She asked Ash and he shook his head, placing the corn he planned to buy off to the side. “No, ma’am, I grew up here.” She glanced at Blanca who wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation, though Ash knew he was listening, and the blond smiled. “He doesn’t know his way around the country.”

The woman nodded and Blanca flashed her a smile, but it seemed his endless charm had no effect on her. She glanced between them and smiled when Ash took a cob of corn from his boyfriend and felt over it. 

“See this?” Ash asked, showing where his thumb dipped down a bit over the husk. “It’s missing some of the kernels.” Blanca was staring at him, and Ash realized he wasn’t actually paying him any mind and he flushed, rolling his eyes a bit. 

“Pay attention, honey.” He said as he handed to corn to the seller who threw it in a basket beside her seat. “How much?” Ash asked, as he held up the three ears of corn. 

“Five-fifty.” She told him and Ash’s eyebrows raised. “That’s pretty cheap.” He stated. “Are you sure?” He asked and she nodded with a kind smile.

“Five-fifty is all I’m taking, sweet-cheeks, don’t try and give more.” Ash smiled at her and paid, giving her an appreciative nod as he walked away, grasping Blanca’s hand.

Blanca glanced at the corn in Ash’s hand and he pulled him a little closer. 

“How much would it usually cost?”

“About 12 dollars.” Blanca’s eyebrows went up and Ash nodded. 

“I guess there are kind people here.” 

——————————

“I’m not going down to the fucking field, Blanca.” Ash was staring at the wall, not directly at his boyfriend and Blanca put himself in Ash’s line of vision. 

“Why? Ash, the past few days have been fun but we need to actually work on-“

“On what? ‘Healing’ me? Blanca, that’s bullshit and we both know it. I’m fucked up and I’m alright with that.” He was clearly lying, Blanca could tell by the way his eyes were flickering. 

“You aren’t okay, Ash. It’s okay to not be okay but part of me trying to help you means that you have to work with me.” The older man made no moves to touch Ash and instead let him pace before him. 

“I’m glad you think I’m screwed up too.”

“Ash, that’s not what I mean and you know it.” Loving Ash was hard, it wasn’t easy. Then again, was love ever an easy path?

“Ash, you know that I love you, and I want to see you get better..” Blanca didn’t mean to sound so pleading, but when he was around Ash, all his training went out the window and his emotions were on display for all to see. 

Ash licked his lips and he shook his head, pushing his hands through his hair. He was thinking, Blanca could see it in his eyes. 

Ash, for all he was smart, didn’t understand his own emotions to save his life. He was never taught how to understand them, but Blanca didn’t mind showing him.

“Why there?” He asked finally, eyes on Blanca with obvious displeasure. “Why do we go there?”

“Ash, we have to go there because that’s when everything began.”

Ash nodded slowly and walked over to the bed, sitting down on the edge and the tears that glimmered in his eyes was like an arrow to Blanca’s chest. He hated to see Ash cry, and he was clearly in pain from this. 

Blanca wished it was different, that Ash had a better childhood growing up, a father who loved him, and he could sleep without having nightmares.

Life isn’t fair though, and it waits for no one. It hurts and it crushes and it steals, but never once, does it give without pain. Ash had been through his fair share of it, and now Blanca was putting him through more.

He almost told Ash to pack up, he almost said that he didn’t need to go. Over the years, Blanca learned to face the fact that he hated to see Ash in pain.

“No one will hurt you there.” Blanca slowly approached him, looking for the subtle cues that it was okay for him to touch Ash and he saw it in the way he turned towards him and Blanca pulled him into his arms and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll keep you safe.”

—————————

The baseball field didn’t change, it still looked like it did in 1978. Even the water pump still leaked like it used to. The field was empty, thankfully. 

Walking ahead of Blanca, he walked to first position on the diamond and tapped his foot against it, eyes staring but not seeing. He remembered how Griffin had taught him how to properly swing a bat, how to strike a home run.

_ “It’s luck,” He had whispered, adjusting Ash’s grip on the bat. “But it’s skill too. And you’re lucky and skilled so there’s no way you’ll miss this.” _

And then he’d hit a home run. 

Griffin was right, he had been lucky but his luck had run out as soon as it came. The coach.. he’d been taken by the lucky blond, he wanted to see what the boy was made of. He wanted to kiss and touch and bite.

Ash wanted to go home and cry in his brother’s arms. Maybe his father because even though his father didn’t take care of him, even though he hit and yelled at him, this would have been different, right?

“I.. I thought my dad would save me.” Ash said softly, looking up at Blanca who had been patiently watching him. “It turns out I was a damn idiot, because he didn’t even take care of me. I should have told Griff, he’d at least.. He’d at least have seen to it that I was.. Righted.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

Ash shook his head and closed his eyes, sighing before speaking slowly. “Drafted, he was eighteen.”

Blanca’s eyebrows furrowed and he approached Ash, listening to the crunch of gravel beneath his feet. “I think had he known..”

“He would have stayed? I said the same. Griffin cared about me so much, he used to starve so that I could stay fed sometimes. At least with the military, he’d be fed, right?” Ash stared down at his shoes and bit his lip.

“I hate this place.” 

Blanca nodded, he could understand why, this place had ruined Ash’s life, this was the start of a road he never wanted to go down. “I hate that kids still spend their summers in this diamond, I hate that no one in this damn town talks about what happened and how many  _ kids died _ -“ Ash cut himself off, he was spilling everywhere, he was breaking. 

Blanca knew it too, and he was gentle as he grabbed Ash’s shoulders and turned him towards himself. 

“Hey, Ash?” He was quiet, soft, and gentle. Ash was in a very fragile position and nothing good ever came when one broke glass. 

“How come no one in this piss poor town  _ cared? _ ” 

Blanca, for all he was worth, couldn’t provide an answer.

—————————

Sitting back in bed, Ash stared off into the distance blankly, eyes sharp as he frowned and took in what was happening. 

“Blanca.” 

His boyfriend stepped out of the bathroom, towel around his waist and a questioning look in his eyes. “Yes?”

“There’s another place we should go.”

Blanca’s eyebrows furrowed and he nodded, though he was clearly confused. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

———————————

The house was falling apart, it was clearly dangerous and old police tape was still littering the old, browning grass. Ash supposed that maybe no one wanted to come near the place, he’d even heard some kids call it haunted, but little did they know if any ghosts called that place home, they were the souls of dead children and their dreams, their hopes, their innocence.

Anything that went into this place surely died, Ash knew, as he stepped onto the lawn and walked in a slow circle, pausing. He stood there, in the grass and he didn’t say anything for a long time, just staring at the grass.

Blanca was unnerved by this, even yesterday at the baseball diamond, Ash had rambled. Now, he was silent as a mouse. 

“The coach.. He used to live here but I bet you already knew that.” Ash started, looking up at Blanca. “This is the place he..” Ash didn’t finish, just swallowed down the vomit in the back of his throat and stared at the ground again. 

_ This was the place _ , Blanca thought,  _ that killed Aslan Jade Callenreese… this is where Ash Lynx was conceived.  _

“Come, follow me.” 

Ash led Blanca to the backyard, stepping over the overgrown glass, beer bottles and whatever else littered the grass and he walked towards a door that clearly went to the basement. 

Ash crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the door, like he was assessing it before he spoke.

“He took me down there once, the place was full of dead kids. Some of them hadn’t even decayed yet, there were flies and rats and these shiny beetles eating at them.. God, even now, I can see it.” Ash walked closer to the door, but he didn’t touch it, just stared blankly at it.

“He said that would be me if I ever tried to get help again. Who am I kidding, it would have been me regardless.” Ash looked over his shoulder at Blanca and he was teary eyed.

“Is that a bad thing? To be told you would be dead if you didn’t.. let yourself get hurt?” 

Blanca walked towards him and Ash tilted his head up a little to look at him, this unbelievable man that he loved more than anything.

“You aren’t okay.”

Ash had always known in the back of his mind that it was never okay, that  _ he  _ had never been okay but now he wasn’t sure if he’d ever associated not being okay  _ with _ himself. 

Ash Lynx had  _ never  _ been  _ okay _ . 

Blinking rapidly, he pressed himself up Blanca and spoke softly, barely loud enough for his lover to hear. 

“I’m not okay.”

————————————

The drive back to Manhattan was relatively quiet, but it was not a tense silence. Ash could remember the way Jim had hugged him tight and warm, like an attempt to put everything he wanted to say into it.

Ash still couldn’t bring himself to forget, could barely bring himself to forgive but he had at least hugged him back. He didn’t miss Cape Cod, however, because it was a place that could have been beautiful. 

_ Beauty is subjective, however.. Because beauty is easy to fake,  _ Ash thought as he stared out the window, staring out over the water.  _ I am not beautiful, I am just subjective. _

“Did you like the trip?” Blanca asked, not taking his eyes off of the road and Ash laughed, loud and real. Did he like it?

“The day at the river was fun. Two weeks in Cape Cod was too long though. Let’s not go back anytime soon though. I hate it there.”

Blanca smiled a little and nodded, his hair flying around his face as he drove, and Ash was struck by an overwhelming amount of emotion as he stared at Blanca, at his laugh lines and crow's feet, the occasional gray hair. 

“I love you.”

Blanca stopped laughing but the smile didn’t leave his eyes as he tilted his head towards Ash, glancing briefly at him.

“I love you too.”

—————————————

Blanca was glad to be home, the familiarity of it was comforting and Ash seemed much better, happier. The blond dropped his bags on the floor and jumped into Blanca’s arms, kissing him right on the mouth and threading his fingers through his hair. 

Blanca was surprised but caught him with ease, hands gripping Ash’s thighs and he kissed him back effortlessly, humming loudly before they separated and Ash rested his head on Blanca’s shoulder. 

Loving Ash was not like loving Natasha.. Loving Ash was like nothing else he’d ever experienced and the two of them could never compare.

“I love you.”

_ These emotions _ , Ash wanted to say,  _ these emotions are cherry blossom pink. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
